Has it been 20 years? It seems like only yesterday that I wrote my very first text message, or sms, as Dutch-speakers say (and pronounce just like the English-speakers do). It must have gone something like: “Ja mam, ik kom niet te laat thuis.” Yes mum, I won’t be home late.

“After years of planning, town officials and Friends of the Big Duck gathered in Flanders on Thursday to cut the ribbon on the first-ever bathrooms at the iconic and beloved attraction.” Thus goes the first paragraph of a story published last week on a local news website, and those who read my latest column may have an inkling what it is about. I wrote about the tiny village of Flanders in Long Island, New York, and its community mascot of a giant duck – a duck, apparently, with restroom facilities. They call it the Big Duck.

More this week on the sticky-outpout, the gesture with the mouth and head an anonymous reader in my last column said the Flemish are famous for when wanting to say something like “Ja, het is goed.” Yes, it is okay.

I know I said I was going to talk about the body language of the Flemish, but after hours of field research, I have come to the conclusion that they don’t really have any. They don’t shake their hands like the Italians, nor do they pout like the French. If body language is any measure to go by, the Flemish are decidedly northern.